M 


ODERN    LOVE    BY 
GEORGE  MEREDITH 


E.  CAVAZZA 


TH€ 
UNIY€RSITY  Of  CALlfORNlfl 
LIBRARY 


lOn'MLL7!r\HRMeS| 


• 


MODERN    LOVE 


GEORGE   MEREDITH 


NOTE.  It  may  be  interesting  to  lecall  the  date  of  the 
volume  of  Meredith's  verse,  which  includes  Modern  Love. 
It  was  published  in  1862,  four  years  after  William  Morris' 
Defence  of  Guenevere,  and  one  year  later  than  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti's  translations  from  the  Early  Italian  Poets,  and 
Algernon  C.  Swinburne's  Queen  Mother  and  Rosamond  — 
three  names  which  are  of  morning  stars  of  modern  poetry 
singing  together  with  voices  harmonious,  yet  distinct, 
raining  their  influence  upon  the  entire  art  of  contemporary 
verse. 


Only  Fifty  copies  of  this  Large  Paper  Edition 
{Post  4to.)  have  been  printed,  ten  of  which  are 
on  Japan  vellum,  and  forty  on  Van  Gelder''s 
hand-made  paper.  Each  copy  numbered,  and  the 
type  distributed. 

No.iJ 


M 


ODERN    LOVE    BY 
GEORGE  MEREDITH 

WITH    FOREWORD    BY 
E.  CAVAZZA 


PRINTED     FOR     THOMAS     B.     MOSHER     AND 
&    PUBLISHED     BY    HIM     AT     37     EXCHANGE 
STREET     PORTLAND    MAINE     MDCCCXCI 


FOREWORD 


397178 


FOREWORD. 

IN  these  times  which  rear  temples  of  praise, 
adorned  with  intricate  carven  work  of  com- 
ment, to  Robert  Browning,  George  Meredith  also 
may  well  claim  here  and  there  a  wayside  shrine. 
He  has,  indeed,  a  group  of  worshipers,  who  make 
up  in  fervor  what  they  lack  in  number ;  and  these 
celebrate  the  master  in  accents  frequently  bor- 
rowed from  his  own,  chanting  what  a  corypheus 
of  theirs,  Mr.  Richard  Le  Gallienne,  has  cleverly 
called  the  Meredithyrambic.  It  is  possible,  how- 
ever, that  for  the  purpose  of  commending  to  the 
general  reader  one  of  Mr.  Meredith's  most  sig- 
nificant and  artistic  works — the  cycle  of  sonnets 
called  Modem  Love  —  there  may  not  be  needed 
the  utterances  of  a  ministrant  deeply  initiate,  but 
rather  the  appreciations  of  one  who,  listening  to 
the  general  choir  of  poets,  hears  in  the  voice  of 
Meredith  a  powerful  and  unique  tone. 
I 


It  is  chiefly  due  to  the  vast  bulk  and  the  diffi- 
cult idiom  of  his  novels  that  these  have  been  se^ 
tardy  of  acceptance  with  the  public ;  a  measure 
of  condescension  toward  the  common  uses  of  the 
English  language  ought  not  to  be  impossible  to 
him ;  and  there  is  much  excuse  for  those  persons 
who  fail  to  find  the  time  remunerative  which  is 
spent  in  seeking  to  follow  the  superabundant 
metaphor  and  suggestion  of  Mr.  Meredith's  work, 
continually  taxing  the  intellect  and  the  mental 
agility  of  the  reader.  Sometimes  this  author's 
recognition  of  the  value  of  every  fact  delays  him 
disproportionately  upon  trifles  ;  he  retouches  the 
record  of  an  impression,  lingeringly,  minutely,  as 
if  for  his  own  pleasure  of  extreme  analysis.  But 
he  is  a  genius  and  a  giant,  a  far-searching  and 
wholesome  philosopher,  one  of  the  few  fire- 
bringers  of  a  tentative  age.  A  reason  why  he  has 
not  shared  the  popular  honors  paid  to  Browning 
may  be  that  their  ideals —  parallel  in  adoration  of 
nature  and  its  laws  —  diverge  when  they  come  to 
the  question  of  the  aim  of  human  life.  Meredith 
has  for  guide  the  love  of  law  ;    Browning's  faith 


V 


was  in  the  law  of  love.  In  existence,  with  all  its 
good  and  its  evil,  Browning  beheld  only  a  series 
of  opportunities  to  learn  the  divine  art  of  love 
which,  to  his  mind,  appeared  the  fulfilling,  even 
when  the  apparent  negation  of  every  law.  Mere- 
dith's goddess,  on  the  contrary,  is  Reason.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  he  sometimes  celebrates 
her  in  a  verbal  anarchy,  which  recalls  her  worship 
in  the  days  of  the  French  revolution  !  To  her  he 
is  vowed  ;  for  him,  her  hands  alone  divide  the 
material  of  life  between  tragedy  and  comedy. 
Yet  if  we  pursue  the  thought  of  the  two  poets, 
they  are  seen  to  unite  in  an  impassioned  belief 
in  the  final  good  and  the  unquenchable  life  of 
the  soul. 

Sentimentality  that  would  close  its  eyes  to  un- 
comfortable facts,  that  dares  not  follow  every 
least  hint  of  nature  to  its  final  analysis,  is  the 
continual  object  of  Mr.  Meredith's  solemn  warn- 
ing and  bitter  contempt.  "More  brain,  more 
brain  !"  is  his  reiterate  cry.  He  is  profoundly 
impressed  with  the  changes  which  are  the  systole 
III 


and  diastole  of  the  heart  of  nature  and  would 
have  men  unafraid,  conformable  : 

Faith  in  ourselves  is  faith  in  Time  ! 
And  faith  in  nature  keeps  the  force 
We  have  in  us  for  daily  use     .     .     . 
Teach  me  to  fee!  myself  the  tree 
And  not  the  wither'd  leaf. 
Fixed  am  I  and  await  the  dark  to  be. 

It  is  with  utterances  like  this,  that  he  confirms 
the  faith  in  ultimate  things.  Reason  and  nature 
form  the  principle  of  Meredith's  philosophy  as 
exemplified  in  his  novels — of  which  there  is  no 
occasion  here  to  speak  in  detail  —  and  inspire 
also  his  Modern  Love.  This  "  great  progres- 
sional  poem,"  as  Mr.  Swinburne  has  called  it, 
connected  "  by  links  of  the  finest  and  most 
studied  workmanship,"  ought  by  virtue  of  its 
essential  qualities  to  remain  the  perdurable  ex- 
ample of  its  author's  poetry.  If  time,  even,  that 
must  load  itself  lightly  as  may  be  for  its  flight, 
should  carry  down  to  the  future  centuries  only 
this  of  all  Meredith's  work,  the  author  would  not 
have  cause  to  complain  of  misrepresentation. 
Modern  Love  is  the  compact  expression  of  his 
theory ;  it  is  constructed  with  most  careful  art ; 


the  sonnets  which  compose  its  sequence  are  like 
so  many  pictures  by  a  master  of  the  impres- 
sionist school.  Precisely  here  may  be  noted  a 
certain  relation  of  Mr.  Meredith's  work  to  that  of 
his  contemporaries  in  other  branches  of  art :  He 
is  not  content  to  use  only  the  means  commonly 
allotted  to  his  own  department,  but  also  imports 
forcibly  material  and  methods  from  the  neigh- 
boring fields.  It  is  not  at  all  certain,  however, 
that  the  curse  of  art  falls  upon  him  who  removes 
the  landmarks  !  To  speak  now  exclusively  of  the 
cycle  of  poems  named  Modern  Love,  it  must  first 
be  admitted  that  although  they  have  the  value 
of  sonnets  and  Mr.  Swinburne  himself,  close 
craftsman  of  poetic  form,  has  not  withheld  from 
them  that  title  —  they  are,  in  fact,  a  half-hundred 
strophes  composed  of  four  quatrains,  the  first 
line  rhymed  with  the  fourth  and  the  second  and 
third  together.  But  the  spirit  is  entirely  that  of 
the  sonnet :  each  strophe  presenting  a  sole  pic- 
ture, with  a  certain  reenforcement  of  its  purpose 
in  the  final  sestet.  The  subject  of  this  tragedy  in 
fifty  brief  scenes,  largely  imagined  and  forcibly 


compressed,  is  the  story  of  the  wedded  misery  of 
two  persons,  whose  natures  were  finely  strung 
instruments  for  fate  to  play  upon.  The  senti- 
mentality of  the  feminine  mind,  that  feeds  on  il- 
lusions and  fears  development  as  it  fears  death  ; 
the  man's  intellect  that  cannot  trust  nature,  but 
will  question  and  analyze  ;  both  of  them  recal- 
citrant against  change,  are  the  motives  of  this  sub- 
dramatic  study.  The  sonnets  are  so  subtle  and 
charged  with  secondary  and  often  vague  mean- 
ings, which  are  rather  the  stimulus  to  thought 
than  its  articulate  expression,  that  a  precise  in- 
terpretation is  hardly  to  be  attempted.  A  few 
general  outlines  may  be  a  sufficient  guide  to  the 
reader. 

The  tragedy  begins  amid  the  silent  solemnity 
of  the  night,  when  the  wakeful  husband  is  con- 
scious of  the  "  strange  low  sobs  "  of  the  wife  at 
his  side.  His  quivering  hand  near  her  head 
questions  her  mutely;  her  only  reply  is  to  silence 
her  sobs.  Imperfect  demand  and  pathetic  dumb- 
ness remain  thus  to  baffle  each  other  from  first 
to  last.     The  husband  is  aware  that  his  wife  loves 


him  no  longer,  that  she  is  even  wooed  by 
another  man.  "Each  suck'd  a  secret  and  each 
wore  a  mask,"  and  he  —  for  it  is  the  husband's 
mind  that  is  the  stage  for  this  drama  —  beholds 
her  as  a  lurid  star  gleaming  above  the  pit  of 
infamy,  and  instantly  hates  himself  for  his  anger. 
He  cannot  even  despise  his  rival,  for  the  rich 
light  of  her  eyes  is  upon  this  lover  and  distin- 
guishes him  "leaving  dark  all  else."  The  hus- 
band, by  a  fine  scruple,  is  withheld  from  a  kiss 
upon  the  brow  of  his  wife,  lest  he  meet  there 
that  other.  For  him,  to  whom  she  is  bound  by 
a  vow  become  empty,  she  is  now 

....   A  phantom-woman  in  the  Past. 
The  hour  has  struck,  though  I  heard  not  the  bell ! 

He  does  not  even  know,  that  he  might  blame, 
the  moment  when  she  was  lost  to  him,  lost  more 
irredeemably  than  if  her  fault  were  more  flagrant. 

The  misery  is  greater,  as  I  live ! 
To  know  her  flesh  so  pure,  so  keen  her  sense 
That  she  does  penance  now  for  no  offence 
Save  against  Love. 

"  It  is  no  vulgar  nature  "  that  he  has  taken  to 
wife ;  her  fault  and  her  remorse  are  alike  intan- 


gible.  Her  familiar  beauty,  "  her  shoulder  in  the 
glass,"  tempts  him  with  the  illusion  that  nothing 
is  changed,  that  all  remains  as  it  was  for  him. 
While  they  sit  by  the  fireside,  "  she  laughing  at  a 
quiet  joke,"  horrible  reiterations  of  suffering  and 
shame  are  in  his  mind  as  he  watches  her ;  and 
though  he  will  not,  even  in  thought,  defame  her, 
her  adornments  appear  to  him  a  meretricious  ap- 
peal to  the  eye.  It  is  not  he  alone  who  struggles^ 
his  doubts  and  her  silence  are  equally  uncon- 
querable ;  without  her,  he  feels  himself  more  and 
more  the  clay  which  he  strives  to  master.  What 
was  his  crime  ? 

....   In  Love's  deep  woods 
I  dreamt  of  loyal  Life :  —  the  offence  is  there  ! 

If  he  could  have  renounced  the  world  and  its 
facts,  been  content  to  dwell  amid  a  fairy  forest 
of  illusions,  she  might  still  have  been  his.  Here 
the  poet  makes  a  severe  arraignment  of  women, 
whose  timid  conservatism  and  reliance  on  the 
senses  he  has  noted  in  his  prose  :  "Alas  for  us," 
he  has  said,  "  This,  our  awful  baggage  in  the  rear 
of  humanity,  these  women  .  .  .  perpetually 
pulling  us  backward  on  the  march." 


The  husband,  looking  to  life's  westward,  per- 
ceives that  his  wife  has  killed  his  future,  taken 
away  the  joy  of  the  present,  mixed  even  the  past 
with  illusion.  Yet  he  will  live  his  entire  life, 
dares  not  cancel  even  one  day  of  its  course. 
Next,  he  looks  upon  a  gold-haired  lady,  and 
learns  what  he  later  finds  within  himself,  that 
without  love  it  is  possible  to  be  jealous.  It  is  a 
modern  Othello,  with  no  harmfulness  against  the 
life  of  the  body,  who  —  in  the  superb  fourteenth 
sonnet  —  creeps  to  the  bedside  of  his  wife,  to 
awaken  her  to  the  sight  of  love  letters  written  by 
her,  but  to  a  new  address. 

The  world  still  views  them  as  happy  host  and 
hostess. 
Dear  guests,  you  now  have  seen  Love's  corpse-light  shme  ! 

Rustic  bumpkins,  dancing  on  the  village  green, 
inspired  by  beer,  the  born  idiot  "  rubbing  his 
hands  before  him  like  a  fly,"  are  objects  of  envy 
to  this  man  of  morbid  heart  and  brain.  A  poig- 
nant moment  for  husband  and  wife  is  in  the 
unconscious  irony  of  a  friend's  demand  for  their 
blessing  upon  his  approaching  marriage.     In  the 


twenty- second  and  twenty-third  sonnets  are  beau- 
tiful expressions  of  the  humility  and  the  reserve 
of  the  poor  woman,  but  pride  remains  the  barrier 
between  these  two,  and  will  not  yield.  He  needs 
distraction ;  and  the  gold-haired  lady  is  at  hand. 
She  is  intelligent,  charming.  Love,  indeed,  has 
lost  all  its  illusions  ;  under  the  gold  hair  and  the 
white  forehead  is  apparent  to  this  man  the  grin 
of  the  skull ;  yet  he  is  grimly  content  to  sit  beside 
her 

And  eat  our  pot  of  honey  on  the  grave. 
His  philosophy  is  cynical : 

What  are  we  first  ?  First,  animals ;  and  next, 
Intelligences  at  a  leap  ;  on  whom 
Pale  lies  the  distant  shadow  of  the  tomb, 
And  all  that  draweth  on  the  tomb  for  text. 


Lady,  this  is  my  Sonnet  to  your  eyes. 

He  may  say  to  her  these  evil  things,  for  her 

golden  head  has  wit  in  it  —  precisely  enough  to 

admire  jejune  philosophy,  he  is  aware.     To  her 

also  he  repeats  that 

....  While  mind  is  mastering  clay, 
Gross  clay  invades  it. 

When  the  poor  wife  seeks  him  with  the  hope 


that  speech  may  at  last  be  possible  between  them, 
he  responds  with  commonplaces,  the  topics  of  the 
day,  an  expected  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  news  from 
Niagara.  He  freezes  her  tongue  and  sense, 
smothers  the  flame  of  her  passion,  checks  the 
stream  of  her  speech, 

Niagara,  or  Vesuvius,  is  deferr'd. 
Madam  and  the  Lady  meet  and  confide  to  him 
their  mutual  impressions,  attacking  with  keen 
rapiers  of  praise  each  other's  weak  points.  Af- 
terward, he  argues  with  the  Lady  that  the  old 
marriage-bond  is  past  renewal,  and  she  must  let 
him  love  her  in  order  to  give  light  to  his  imag- 
ination, that  otherwise  must  turn  to  clay  or  to 
stone.  Yet  the  sight  of  the  unloved  wife,  who 
touches  the  hand  of  that  other  man,  is  able  to 
change  the  moon  to  a  dancing  spectre  before  his 
eyes.  Then  there  is  a  mournful  mocking  sem- 
blance of  reunion,  and  their  love  is  killed  by  their 
kisses.  By  the  sea,  troubled  and  terrible,  shall 
be  its  grave  —  a  scene  greatly  portrayed  in  the 
forty-third  sonnet. 

We  must  go  to  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti's  verse, 

XI 


or  to  that  of  the  Italian  poets  of  the  trecento  his 
masters,  for  a  sonnet-opening  like  the  first  six 
lines  of  the  forty-fourth  sonnet, 

They  say  that  Pity  in  Love's  service  dwells, 
with  its  quaint,  pure  outline  and  sweet  primitive 
color.  Finally  a  chance  meeting  with  her,  and 
not  alone,  impels  the  husband  to  declare  his  faith 
in  the  wife.  This  inspired  moment  enlarges  into 
a  timeless  experience  of  love's  power,  depicted 
in  the  sonnet  of  which  Mr.  Swinburne  has  de- 
clared :  "  A  more  perfect  piece  of  writing  no  man 
alive  has  ever  turned  out :  " 

We  saw  the  swallows  gathering  in  the  skies. 
Of  this  supreme  hour,  an  exterior  image  —  as 
in   Rossetti's    Woodspurge —  remains    startlingly 
impressed  : 

And  still  I  see  across  the  twilight  wave, 

The  swan  sail  with  her  young  beneath  her  wings. 

Rapidly  upon  this  respite  follows  the  original 
arraignment  of  the  feminine  mind  : 

Their  sense  is  with  their  senses  all  mixed  in, 
Destroyed  by  subtleties  these  women  are  ! 
More  brain,  O  Lord,  more  brain  !  or  we  shall  mar 
Utterly  this  fair  garden  we  might  win. 


For  with  the  first  words  of  honest  speech  of 
the  man's  confession,  the  jealous  devotion  of  the 
wife  bids  him  seek  that  Lady.  Truly  masculine 
is  his  judgment  of  this  fantasy  of  her  sentiment : 

I  do  adore  the  nobleness  !  despise 
The  act ! 

She  has  left  him  ;  let  the  world  guess  at  her 
motives,  he  knows  them  pure,  even  too  subtly 
strained.  He  follows  her  and  finds  her  near  the 
sea ;  and  she  "  though  shadowlike  and  dry,"  re- 
turns with  him.  The  midnight  sees  the  end,  ^s  it 
saw  the  beginning  of  their  tragedy. 

"  Now  kiss  me,  dear!  it  may  be,  now!  "  she  said. 
Lethe  had  pass'd  those  lips,  and  he  knew  all. 

In  the  closing  sonnet  are  magnificently  summed 
up  the  causes  of  the  tragedy,  of  which  the  poet 
has  not  given  us  to  hear  the  prologue.  The  fault 
of  those  two  who  suffered  was  in  their  lack  of 
trust  in  themselves,  in  each  other  and  in  time ; 
bewildered,  confused,  they  tried  by  feeble  expe- 
dients to  stay  the  motion  of  their  spirits.  Cling- 
ing timorously  to  yesterday 

....  They  fed  not  on  the  advancing  hours, 

XIII 


they  dared  not  obey  "Necessity's  instinct,  true, 
though  unsteady"  (as  Mr.  Meredith  has  else- 
where written).  They  repeated  the  ancient  error 
of  Psyche,  scanning  the  sleep  of  Love  with  a 
lamp,  from  which  the  burning  drops  of  doubtful- 
ness fall,  sear  his  white  shoulder  and  wake  him 
to  flight. 

A  grim  lesson  it  is  which  this  oversubtle  and 
analytical  end  of  the  century  may  read  in  the 
"  tragic  hints"  of  Mr.  Meredith's  story  of  Modem 
Love. 

E.  CAVAZZA. 

November,  1891. 


MODERN    LOVE 


This  is  not  meat 
For  little  people  or  for  fools. 

Book  of  the  Sages. 


I 


BY  this  he  knew  she  wept  with  waking  eyes : 
That,  at  his  hand's  light  quiver  by  her  head. 
The  strange  low  sobs  that  shook  their  common  bed 
Were  called  into  her  with  a  sharp  surprise, 
And  strangled  mute,  like  little  gaping  snakes, 
Dreadfully  venomous  to  him.     She  lay 
Stone-still,  and  the  long  darkness  flow'd  away 
With  muffled  pulses.     Then,  as  midnight  makes 
Her  giant  heart  of  Memory  and  Tears 
Drink  the  pale  drug  of  silence,  and  so  beat 
Sleep's  heavy  measure,  they  from  head  to  feet 
Were  moveless,  looking  thro'  their  dead  black  years, 
By  vain  regret  scrawl'd  over  the  blank  wall. 
Like  sculptured  effigies  they  might  be  seen 
Upon  their  marriage-tomb,  the  sword  between ; 
Each  wishing  for  the  sword  that  severs  all. 


11 


IT  ended,  and  the  morrow  brought  the  task : 
Her  eyes  were  guilty  gates  that  let  him  in 
By  shutting  all  too  zealous  for  their  sin : 
Each  suck'd  a  secret,  and  each  wore  a  mask. 
But,  oh  the  bitter  taste  her  beauty  had  ! 
He  sicken'd  as  at  breath  of  poison-flowers : 
A  languid  humour  stole  among  the  hours. 
And  if  their  smiles  encounter'd,  he  went  mad, 
And  raged,  deep  inward,  till  the  light  was  brown 
Before  his  vision,  and  the  world  forgot, 
Look'd  wicked  as  some  old  dull  murder  spot. 
A  star  with  lurid  beams,  she  seem'd  to  crown 
The  pit  of  infamy  :  and  then  again 
He  fainted  on  his  vengefulness,  and  strove 
To  ape  the  magnanimity  of  love. 
And  smote  himself,  a  shuddering  heap  of  pain. 


Ill 

'""T'^HIS  was  the  woman  ;  what  now  of  the  man? 

X       But  pass  him  !     If  he  comes  beneath  our  heel 
He  shall  be  crush'd  until  he  cannot  feel, 
Or,  being  callous,  haply  till  he  can. 
But  he  is  nothing  :  —  nothing  ?     Only  mark 
The  rich  light  striking  from  her  unto  him  : 
Ha !  what  a  sense  it  is  when  her  eyes  swim 
Across  the  man  she  singles,  leaving  dark 
All  else  !  Lord  God,  who  mad'st  the  thing  so  fair, 
See  that  I  am  drawn  to  her  even  now ! 
It  cannot  be  such  harm  on  her  cool  brow 
To  put  a  kiss  ?     Yet  if  I  meet  him  there  ! 
But  she  is  mine  !     Ah,  no  !     I  know  too  well 
I  claim  a  star  whose  light  is  overcast : 
I  claim  a  phantom-woman  in  the  Past. 
The  hour  has  struck,  though  I  heard  not  the  bell  I 


IV  • 

ALL  other  joys  of  life  he  strove  to  warm, 
And  magnify,  and  catch  them  to  his  lip 
But  they  had  suffered  shipwreck  with  the  ship, 
And  gazed  upon  him  sallow  from  the  storm. 
Or  if  Delusion  came,  'twas  but  to  show 
The  coming  minute  mock  the  one  that  went. 
Cold  as  a  mountain  in  its  star-pitch'd  tent 
Stood  high  Philosophy,  less  friend  than  foe  : 
Whom  self-caged  Passion,  from  its  prison-bars, 
Is  always  watching  with  a  wondering  hate. 
Not  till  the  fire  is  dying  in  the  grate, 
Look  we  for  any  kinship  with  the  stars. 
Oh,  wisdom  never  comes  when  it  is  gold,         ^ 
And  the  great  price  we  pay  for  it  full  worth. 
We  have  it  only  when  we  are  half  earth. 
Little  avails  that  coinage  to  the  old ! 


A  message  from  her  set  his  brain  aflame. 
A  world  of  household  matters  fill'd  her  mind, 
Wherein  he  saw  h)rpocrisy  design'd  : 
She  treated  him  as  something  that  is  tame, 
And  but  at  other  provocation  bites. 
Familiar  was  her  shoulder  in  the  glass 
Through  that  dark  rain  :  yet  it  may  come  to  pass 
That  a  changed  eye  finds  such  familiar  sights, 
More  keenly  tempting  than  new  loveliness. 
The  '  What  has  been '  a  moment  seem'd  his  own  : 
The  splendours,  mysteries,  dearer  because  known, 
Nor  less  divine  :     Love's  inmost  sacredness, 
Call'd  to  him,  "  Come  !  " —  In  that  restraining  start, 
Eyes  nurtured  to  be  look'd  at,  scarce  could  see 
A  wave  of  the  great  waves  of  Destiny 
Convulsed  at  a  check'd  impulse  of  the  heart. 


VI 


IT  chanced  his  lips  did  meet  her  forehead  cool. 
She  had  no  blush,  but  slanted  down  her  eye. 
Shamed  nature,  then,  confesses  love  can  die : 
And  most  she  punishes  the  tender  fool 
Who  will  believe  what  honours  her  the  most ! 
Dead  !  is  it  dead  ?     She  has  a  pulse,  and  flow 
Of  tears,  the  price  of  blood-drops,  as  I  know 
For  whom  the  midnight  sobs  around  Love's  ghost, 
Since  then  I  heard  her,  and  so  will  sob  on. 
The  love  is  here ;  it  has  but  changed  its  aim. 
O  bitter  barren  woman  !  what's  the  name  ? 
The  name,  the  name,  the  new  name  thou  hast  won  ? 
Behold  me  striking  the  world's  coward  stroke  ! 
That  will  I  not  do,  though  the  sting  is  dire. 
— Beneath  the  surface  this,  while  by  the  fire 
They  sat,  she  laughing  at  a  quiet  joke. 


VII 


SHE  issues  radiant  from  her  dressing  room, 
Like  one  prepared  to  scale  an  upper  sphere 
— By  stirring  up  a  lower,  much  I  fear  ! 
How  deftly  that  oil'd  barber  lays  his  bloom  ! 
That  long-shank'd  dapper  Cupid  with  frisk'd  curls, 
Can  make  known  women  torturingly  fair ; 
The  gold-eyed  serpent  dwelling  in  rich  hair, 
Awakes  beneath  his  magic  whisks  and  twirls. 
His  art  can  take  the  eyes  from  out  my  head. 
Until  I  see  with  eyes  of  other  men  ; 
While  deeper  knowledge  crouches  in  its  den, 
And  sends  a  spark  up :  —  is  it  true  we're  wed  ? 
Yea  !  filthiness  of  body  is  most  vile. 
But  faithlessness  of  heart  I  do  hold  worse. 
The  former,  it  were  not  so  great  a  curse 
To  read  on  the  steel-mirror  of  her  smile. 


VIII 

YET  it  was  plain  she  struggled,  and  that  salt 
Of  righteous  feeling  made  her  pitiful. 

0  abject  worm,  so  queenly  beautiful ! 

Where  came  the  cleft  between  us  ?  whose  the  fault  ? 
My  tears  are  on  thee,  that  have  rarely  dropp'd 
As  balm  for  any  bitter  wound  of  mine : 
My  breast  will  open  for  thee  at  a  sign  ! 
But,  no  :  we  are  two  reed-pipes,  coarsely  stopp'd  : 
The  God  once  filled  them  with  his  mellow  breath  ; 
And  they  were  music  till  he  flung  them  down, 
Used  !  used  !     Hear  now  the  discord-loving  clown 
Puff  his  gross  spirit  in  them,  worse  than  death  ! 

1  do  not  know  myself  without  thee  more : 
In  this  unholy  battle  I  grow  base  : 

If  the  same  soul  be  under  the  same  face, 
Speak,  and  a  taste  of  that  old  time  restore  ! 


IX 


HE  felt  the  wild  beast  in  him  betweenwhiles 
So  masterfully  rude,  that  he  would  grieve 
To  see  the  helpless  delicate  thing  receive 
His  guardianship  through  certain  dark  defiles. 
Had  he  not  teeth  to  rend,  and  hunger  too  ? 
But  still  he  spared  her.     Once  :  "  Have  you  no  fear  ? " 
He  said  :  'twas  dusk  ;  she  in  his  grasp  ;  none  near. 
She  laughed  :  "  No,  surely ;  am  I  not  with  you  ? " 
And  uttering  that  soft  starry  '  you,'  she  lean'd 
Her  gentle  body  near  him,  looking  up ; 
And  from  her  eyes,  as  from  a  poisori-cup. 
He  drank  until  the  flittering  eyelids  screen'd. 
Devilish  malignant  witch !  And  oh,  young  beam 
Of  H eaven's  circle-glory  !     Here  thy  shape 
To  squeeze  like  an  intoxicating  grape — 
I  might,  and  yet  thou  goest  safe,  supreme. 


BUT  where  began  the  change ;  and  what's  my  crime  ? 
The  wretch  condemn'd,  who  has  not  been  arraign'd, 
Chafes  at  his  sentence.     Shall  I,  unsustain'd, 
Drag  on  Love's  nerveless  body  thro'  all  time? 
I  must  have  slept,  since  now  I  wake.     Prepare, 
You  lovers,  to  know  Love  a  thing  of  moods  : 
Not  like  hard  life,  of  laws.     In  Love's  deep  woods 
I  dreamt  of  loyal  Life  : — the  offence  is  there  ! 
Love's  jealous  woods  about  the  sun  are  curl'd  ; 
At  least,  the  sun  far  brighter  there  did  beam. — 
My  crime  is  that,  the  puppet  of  a  dream, 
I  plotted  to  be  worthy  of  the  world. 
Oh,  had  I  with  my  darling  help'd  to  mince 
The  facts  of  life,  you  still  had  seen  me  go 
With  hindward  feather  and  with  forward  toe, 
Her  much-adored  delightful  Fairy  Prince  ! 


XI 


OUT  in  the  yellow  meadows  where  the  bee 
Hums  by  us  with  the  honey  of  the  Spring, 
And  showers  of  sweet  notes  from  the  larks  on  wing, 
Are  dropping  like  a  noon-dew  wander  we. 
Or  is  it  now  ?  or  was  it  then  ?  for  now, 
As  then,  the  larks  from  running  rings  send  showers : 
The  golden  foot  of  May  is  on  the  flowers. 
And  friendly  shadows  dance  upon  her  brow. 
What's  this,  when  Nature  swears  there  is  no  change 
To  challenge  eyesight  ?     Now,  as  then,  the  grace 
Of  Heaven  seems  holding  Earth  in  its  embrace. 
Nor  eyes,  nor  heart,  has  she  to  feel  it  strange  ? 
Look,  woman,  in  the  west.     There  wilt  thou  see 
An  amber  cradle  near  the  sun's  decline  : 
Within  it,  featured  even  in  death  divine, 
Is  lying  a  dead  infant,  slain  by  thee ! 


XII 


NOT  solely  that  the  Future  she  destroys, 
And  the  fair  life  which  in  the  distance  lies 
For  all  men,  beckoning  out  from  dim  rich  skies : 
Nor  that  the  passing  hour's  supporting  joys 
Have  lost  the  keen-edged  flavour,  which  begat 
Distinction  in  old  time,  and  still  should  breed 
Sweet  Memory,  and  Hope, — Earth's  modest  seed, 
And  Heaven's  high-prompting :  not  that  the  world  is  flat 
Since  that  soft-luring  creature  I  embraced, 
Among  the  children  of  Illusion  went : 
Methinks  with  all  this  loss  I  were  content. 
If  the  mad  Past,  on  which  my  foot  is  based, 
Were  firm,  or  might  be  blotted :  but  the  whole 
Of  life  is  mixed  :  the  mocking  Past  must  stay  : 
And  if  I  drink  oblivion  of  a  day, 
So  shorten  I  the  stature  of  my  soul. 


XIII 

"  T  play  for  Seasons ;  not  Eternities  ! " 

X     Says  Nature,  laughing  on  her  way.     "  So  must 
All  those  whose  stake  is  nothing  more  than  dust ! " 
And  lo,  she  wins,  and  of  her  harmonies 
She  is  full  sure  !     Upon  her  dying  rose 
She  drops  a  look  of  fondness,  and  goes  by, 
Scarce  any  retrospection  in  her  eye  ; 
For  she  the  laws  of  growth  most  deeply  knows, 
Whose  hands  bear,  here,  a  seed-bag ;  there,  an  urn. 
Pledged  she  herself  to  aught,  'twould  mark  her  end ! 
This  lesson  of  our  only  visible  friend, 
Can  we  not  teach  our  foolish  hearts  to  learn  ? 
Yes  !  yes  !  —  but  oh,  our  human  rose  is  fair 
Surpassingly  !     Lose  calmly  Love's  great  bliss, 
When  the  renew'd  forever  of  a  kiss 
Sounds  thro'  the  listless  hurricane  of  hair  ! 


XIV 

WHAT  soul  would  bargain  for  a  cure  that  brings 
Contempt  the  nobler  agony  to  kill  ? 
Rather  let  me  bear  on  the  bitter  ill, 
And  strike  this  rusty  bosom  with  new  stings  ! 
It  seems  there  is  another  veering  fit, 
Since  on  a  gold-hair'd  lady's  eyeballs  pure, 
I  look'd  with  little  prospect  of  a  cure, 
The  while  her  mouth's  red  bow  loosed  shafts  of  wit. 
Just  Heaven  !  can  it  be  true  that  jealousy 
Has  deck'd  the  woman  thus  ?  and  does  her  head 
Whirl  giddily  for  what  she  forfeited  ? 
Madam  !  you  teach  me  many  things  that  be. 
I  open  an  old  book,  and  there  I  find 
That  '  Women  still  may  love  whom  they  deceive.* 
Such  love  I  prize  not,  Madam  :  by  your  leave, 
The  game  you  play  at  is  not  to  my  mind. 


XV 


I  think  she  sleeps  :  it  must  be  sleep,  when  low 
Hangs  that  abandon'd  arm  towards  the  floor : 
The  head  turn'd  with  it.     Now  make  fast  the  door. 
Sleep  on  :  it  is  your  husband,  not  your  foe  ! 
The  Poet's  black  stage-lion  of  wrong'd  love, 
Frights  not  our  modern  dames  : — well,  if  he  did  ! 
Now  will  I  pour  new  light  upon  that  lid. 
Full-sloping  like  the  breasts  beneath.     "  Sweet  dove, 
"  Your  sleep  is  pure.     Nay,  pardon :  I  disturb. 
"  I  do  not  ?  well !  "     Her  waking  infant  stare 
Grows  woman  to  the  burden  my  hands  bear : 
Her  own  handwriting  to  me  when  no  curb 
Was  left  on  Passion's  tongue.     She  trembles  thro' ; 
A  woman's  tremble — ^the  whole  instrument :  — 
I  show  another  letter  lately  sent. 
The  words  are  very  like  :  the  name  is  new. 


XVI 

IN  our  old  shipwreck'd  days  there  was  an  hour, 
When  in  the  firelight  steadily  aglow, 
Join'd  slackly,  we  beheld  the  chasm  grow 
Among  the  clicking  coals.     Our  library-bower 
That  eve  was  left  to  us :  and  hush'd  we  sat 
As  lovers  to  whom  Time  is  whispering. 
From  sudden-open'd  doors  we  heard  them  sing  : 
The  nodding  elders  mix'd  good  wine  with  chat. 
Well  knew  we  that  Life's  greatest  treasure  lay 
With  us,  and  of  it  was  our  talk.     "  Ah,  yes  ! 
"  Love  dies  !  "     I  said  :  I  never  thought  it  less. 
She  yearn'd  to  me  that  sentence  to  unsay. 
Then  when  the  fire  domed  blackening,  I  found 
Her  cheek  was  salt  against  my  kiss,  and  swift 
Up  the  sharp  scale  of  sobs  her  breast  did  lift :  — 
Now  am  I  haunted  by  that  taste  !  that  sound  ! 


XVII 

AT  dinner  she  is  hostess,  I  am  host. 
Went  the  feast  ever  cheerfuller  ?     She  keeps 
The  Topic  over  intellectual  deeps 
In  buoyancy  afloat.     They  see  no  ghost. 
With  sparkling  surface-eyes  we  ply  the  ball : 
It  is  in  truth  a  most  contagious  game  ; 
Hiding  the  Skeleton  shall  be  its  name. 
Such  play  as  this  the  devils  might  appal ! 
But  here's  the  greater  wonder  ;  in  that  we, 
Enamour'd  of  our  acting  and  our  wits, 
Admire  each  other  like  true  hypocrites. 
Warm-lighted  glances,  Love's  Ephemerae, 
Shoot  gaily  o'er  the  dishes  and  the  wine. 
We  waken  envy  of  our  happy  lot. 
Fast,  sweet,  and  golden,  shows  our  marriage-knot. 
Dear  guests,  you  now  have  seen  Love's  corpse-light  shine  j 


XVIII 

HERE  Jack  and  Tom  are  pair'd  with  Moll  and  Meg. 
Curved  open  to  the  river-reach  is  seen 
A  country  merry-making  on  the  green. 
Fair  space  for  signal  shakings  of  the  leg. 
That  little  screwy  fiddler  from  his  booth, 
Whence  flows  one  nut-brown  stream,  commands  the  joints 
Of  all  who  caper  here  at  various  points. 
I  have  known  rustic  revels  in  my  youth  : 
The  May-fly  pleasures  of  a  mind  at  ease. 
An  early  goddess  was  a  country  lass  : 
A  charm'd  Amphion-oak  she  tripped  the  grass. 
What  life  was  that  I  lived  ?  The  life  of  these  ? 
God  keep  them  happy !  Nature  they  are  near. 
They  must,  I  think,  be  wiser  than  I  am  : 
They  have  the  secret  of  the  bull  and  lamb. 
'Tis  true  that  when  we  trace  its  source,  'tis  beer. 


XIX 

No  state  is  enviable.     To  the  luck  alone 
Of  some  few  favour'd  men  I  would  put  claim. 
I  bleed,  but  she  who  wounds  I  will  not  blame. 
Have  I  not  felt  her  heart  as  'twere  my  own, 
Beat  thro'  me  ?  could  I  hurt  her  ?    Heaven  and  Hell ! 
But  I  could  hurt  her  cruelly  !     Can  I  let 
My  Love's  old  time-piece  to  another  set, 
Swear  it  can't  stop,  and  must  for  ever  swell  ? 
Sure,  that's  one  way  Love  drifts  into  the  mart 
Where  goat-legg'd  buyers  throng.     I  see  not  plain  :  — 
My  meaning  is,  it  must  not  be  again. 
Great  God  !  the  maddest  gambler  throws  his  heart. 
If  any  state  be  enviable  on  earth, 
'Tis  yon  born  idiot's,  who,  as  days  go  by, 
Still  rubs  his  hands  before  him  like  a  fly, 
In  a  queer  sort  of  meditative  mirth. 


XX 


I  am  not  of  those  miserable  males 
Who  sniff  at  vice,  and,  daring  not  to  snap, 
Do  therefore  hope  for  Heaven.     I  take  the  hap 
Of  all  my  deeds.     The  wind  that  fills  my  sails, 
Propels  ;  but  I  am  helmsman.     Am  I  wreck'd, 
I  know  the  devil  has  sufficient  weight 
To  bear  :  I  lay  it  not  on  him,  or  fate. 
Besides,  he's  damn'd.    That  man  I  do  suspect 
A  coward,  who  would  burden  the  poor  deuce 
With  what  ensues  from  his  own  slipperiness. 
I  have  just  found  a  wanton-scented  tress 
In  an  old  desk,  dusty  for  lack  of  use. 
Of  days  and  nights  it  is  demonstrative. 
That  like  a  blasted  star  gleam  luridly. 
If  for  that  time  I  must  ask  charity, 
Have  I  not  any  charity  to  give? 


XXI 


WE  three  are  on  the  cedar-shadow'd  lawn  ; 
My  friend  being  third.     He  who  at  love  once  laugh'd, 
Is  in  the  weak  rib  by  a  fatal  shaft 
Struck  through  and  tells  his  passion's  bashful  dawn, 
And  radiant  culmination,  glorious  crown, 
When  '  this  '  she  said :  went  '  thus  : '  most  wondrous  she  I 
Our  eyes  grow  white,  encountering  ;  that  we  are  three, 
Forgetful ;  then  together  we  look  down. 
But  he  demands  our  blessing ;  is  convinced 
That  words  of  wedded  lovers  must  bring  good. 
We  question  :  if  we  dare !  or  if  we  should  ! 
And  pat  him,  with  light  laugh.     We  have  not  winced. 
Next,  she  has  fallen.     Fainting  points  the  sign 
To  happy  things  in  wedlock.     When  she  wakes 
She  looks  the  star  that  thro'  the  cedar  shakes  : 
Her  lost  moist  hand  clings  mortally  to  mine. 


XXII 

WHAT  may  this  woman  labour  to  confess  ? 
There  is  about  her  mouth  a  nervous  twitch. 
'Tis  something  to  be  told,  or  hidden  :  —  which  ? 
I  get  a  glimpse  of  Hell  in  this  mild  guess. 
She  has  desires  of  touch,  as  if  to  feel 
That  all  the  household  things  are  things  she  knew. 
She  stops  before  the  glass.     What  does  she  view  ? 
A  face  that  seems  the  latest  to  reveal ! 
For  she  turns  from  it  hastily,  and  toss'd 
Irresolute,  steals  shadow-like  to  where 
I  stand  ;  and  wavering  pale  before  me  there, 
Her  tears  fall  still  as  oak-leaves  after  frost.. 
She  will  not  speak.     I  will  not  ask.     We  are 
League-sunder'd  by  the  silent  gulf  between. 
You  burly  lovers  on  the  village  green, 
Yours  is  a  lower,  but  a  happier  star ! 


XXIII 

"~r^IS  Christmas  weather,  and  a  country  house 

X       Receives  us  :  rooms  are  full :  we  can  but  get 
An  attic-crib.     Such  lovers  will  not  fret 
At  that,  it  is  half-said.     The  great  carouse 
Knocks  hard  upon  the  midnight's  hollow  door. 
But  when  I  knock  at  hers,  I  see  the  pit. 
Why  did  I  come  here  in  that  dullard  fit  ? 
I  enter,  and  lie  couch'd  upon  the  floor. 
Passing,  I  caught  the  coverlid's  quick  beat :  — 
Come,  Shame,  bum  to  my  soul !  and  Pride,  and  Pain 
Foul  demons  that  have  tortured  me,  sustain  ! 
Out  in  the  freezing  darkness  the  lambs  bleat. 
The  small  bird  stiffens  in  the  low  starlight. 
I  know  not  how,  but,  shuddering  as  I  slept, 
I  dream'd  a  banish'd  Angel  to  me  crept : 
My  feet  were  nourish'd  on  her  breasts  all  night. 


XXIV 

THE  misery  is  greater,  as  I  live  ! 
To  know  her  flesh  so  pure,  so  keen  her  sense, 
That  she  does  penai>ce  now  for  no  offence, 
Save  against  Love,     The  less  can  I  forgive  ! 
The  less  can  I  forgive,  though  I  adore 
That  cruel  lovely  pallor  which  surrounds 
Her  footsteps ;  and  the  low  vibrating  sounds 
That  come  on  me,  as  from  a  magic  shore. 
Low  are  they,  but  most  subtle  to  find  out 
The  shrinking  soul.     Madam,  'tis  understood 
When  women  play  upon  their  womanhood. 
It  means,  a  Season  gone.     And  yet  I  doubt 
But  I  am  duped.     That  nun-like  look  waylays    > 
My  fancy.     Oh  !  I  do  but  wait  a  sign  ! 
Pluck  out  the  eyes  of  Pride  !  thy  mouth  to  mine  ! 
Never  !  though  I  die  thirsting.     Go  thy  ways  ! 


XXV 

You  like  not  that  French  novel  ?     Tell  me  why. 
You  think  it  most  unnatural.     Let  us  see. 
The  actors  are,  it  seems,  the  usual  three  : 
Husband,  and  wife,  and  lover.     She  —  but  fie  ! 
In  England  we'll  not  hear  of  it.     Edmond, 
The  lover,  her  devout  chagrin  doth  share  ; 
Blanc-mange  and  absinthe  are  his  penitent  fare, 
Till  his  pale  aspect  makes  her  overfond : 
So,  to  preclude  fresh  sin,  he  tries  rosbif. 
Meantime  the  husband  is  no  more  abused  : 
Auguste  forgives  her  ere  the  tear  is  used. 
Then  hangeth  all  on  one  tremendous  If :  — 
If  she  will  choose  between  them !     She  does  choose  ; 
And  takes  her  husband  like  a  proper  wife. 
Unnatural  ?  My  dear,  these  things  are  life  : 
And  life,  they  say,  is  worthy  of  the  Muse. 


XXVI 

LOVE  ere  he  bleeds,  an  eagle  in  high  skies, 
Has  earth  beneath  his  wings :  from  redden'd  eve 
He  views  the  rosy  dawn.     In  vain  they  weave 
The  fatal  web  below  while  far  he  flies. 
But  when  the  arrow  strikes  him,  there's  a  change. 
He  moves  but  in  the  track  of  his  spent  pain, 
Whose  red  drops  are  the  links  of  a  harsh  chain, 
Binding  him  to  the  ground  with  narrow  range. 
A  subtle  serpent  then  has  Love  become. 
I  had  the  eagle  in  my  bosom  erst. 
Henceforward  with  the  serpent  I  am  curs'd. 
I  can  interpret  where  the  mouth  is  dumb. 
Speak,  and  I  see  the  side-lie  of  a  truth. 
Perchance  my  heart  may  pardon  you  this  deed :  «. 
But  be  no  coward  :  —  you  that  made  Love  bleed, 
You  must  bear  all  the  venom  of  his  tooth  ! 


\ 


XXVII 

DISTRACTION  is  the  panacea,  Sir  ! 
I  hear  my  Oracle  of  Medicine  say. 
Doctor  !  that  same  specific  yesterday 
I  tried,  and  the  result  will  not  deter 
A  second  trial.     Is  the  devil's  line 
Of  golden  hair,  or  raven  black,  composed  ? 
And  does  a  cheek,  like  any  sea-shell  rosed, 
Or  fair  as  widow'd  Heaven,  seem  most  divine  ? 
No  matter,  so  I  taste  forgetfulness. 
And  if  the  devil  snare  me,  body  and  mind, 
Here  gratefully  I  score  :  —  he  seemed  kind, 
When  not  a  soul  would  comfort  my  distress  ! 
O  sweet  new  world  in  which  I  rise  new  made  ! 
O  Lady,  once  I  gave  love  :  now  I  take  ! 
Lady,  I  must  be  flatter'd.     Shouldst  thou  wake 
The  passion  of  a  demon,  be  not  afraid. 


XXVIII 

I  must  be  tlatter'd.     The  imperious 
Desire  speaks  out.     Lady,  I  am  content 
To  play  with  you  the  game  of  Sentiment, 
And  with  you  enter  on  paths  perilous : 
But  if  across  your  beauty  I  throw  light, 
To  make  it  threefold,  it  must  be  all  mine. 
First  secret ;  then  avow'd.     For  I  must  shine 
Envied,  —  I,  lessen'd  in  my  proper  sight ! 
Be  watchful  of  your  beauty.  Lady  dear  ! 
How  much  hangs  on  that  lamp  you  cannot  tell. 
Most  earnestly  I  pray  you,  tend  it  well : 
And  men  shall  see  me  like  the  burning  sphere  : 
And  men  shall  mark  you  eyeing  me,  and  groan 
To  be  the  God  of  such  a  grand  sunflower  ! 
I  feel  the  promptings  of  Satanic  power. 
While  you  do  homage  unto  me  alone. 


XXIX 

AM  I  failing ?  for  no  longer  can  I  cast 
A  glory  round  about  this  head  of  gold. 
Glory  she  wears,  but  springing  from  the  mould  : 
Not  like  the  consecration  of  the  Past ! 
Is  my  soul  beggar'd  ?     Something  more  than  earth 
I  cry  for  still  :  I  cannot  be  at  peace 
In  having  Love  upon  a  mortal  lease. 
I  cannot  take  the  woman  at  her  worth  ! 
Where  is  the  ancient  wealth  wherewith  I  clothed 
Our  human  nakedness,  and  could  endow 
With  spiritual  splendour  a  white  brow 
That  else  had  grinn'd  at  me  the  fact  I  loath'd  > 
A  kiss  is  but  a  kiss  now  !  and  no  wave 
Of  a  great  flood  that  whirls  me  to  the  sea. 
But,  as  you  will  !  we'll  sit  contentedly. 
And  eat  our  pot  of  honey  on  the  grave. 


XXX 

WHAT  are  we  first  ?     First,  animals  ;  and  next, 
Intelligences  at  a  leap  ;  on  whom 
Pale  lies  the  distant  shadow  of  the  tomb, 
And  all  that  draweth  on  the  tomb  for  text. 
Into  this  state  comes  Love,  the  crowning  sun : 
Beneath  whose  light  the  shadow  loses  form. 
We  are  the  lords  of  life,  and  life  is  warm. 
Intelligence  and  instinct  now  are  one. 
But  Nature  says  :  '  My  children  most  they  seem 
When  they  least  know  me  :  therefore  I  decree 
That  they  shall  suffer.'     Swift  doth  young  Love  flee : 
And  we  stand  waken'd,  shivering  from  our  dream. 
Then  if  we  study  Nature  we  are  wise. 
Thus  do  the  few  who  live  but  with  the  day. 
The  scientific  animals  are  they.  — 
Lady,  this  is  my  Sonnet  to  your  eyes. 


XXXI 

THIS  golden  head  has  wit  in  it.     I  live 
Again,  and  a  far  higher  life,  near  her. 
Some  women  like  a  young  philosopher ; 
Perchance  because  he  is  diminutive. 
For  woman's  manly  god  must  not  exceed 
Proportions  of  the  natural  nursing  size. 
Great  poets  and  great  sages  draw  no  prize 
With  women  :  but  the  little  lap-dog  breed, 
Who  can  be  hugg'd,  or  on  a  mantel-piece 
Perch'd  up  for  adoration,  these  obtain 
Her  homage.     And  of  this  we  men  are  vain  ? 
Of  this  !  'Tis  order'd  for  the  world's  increase  ! 
Small  flattery  !     Yet  she  has  that  rare  gift 
To  beauty.  Common  Sense.     I  am  approved. 
It  is  not  half  so  nice  as  being  loved, 
And  yet  I  do  prefer  it.     What's  my  drift  ? 


XXXII 

FULL  faith  I  have  she  holds  that  rarest  gift 
To  beauty,  Common  Sense.     To  see  her  lie 
With  her  fair  visage  an  inverted  sky 
Bloom-cover'd,  while  the  underlids  uplift, 
Would  almost  wreck  the  faith  ;  but  when  her  mouth 
(Can  it  kiss  sweetly  ?  sweetly  !)  would  address 
The  inner  me  that  thirsts  for  her  no  less, 
And  has  so  long  been  languishing  in  drouth, 
I  feel  that  I  am  match'd  :  that  I  am  man  ! 
One  restless  corner  of  my  heart,  or  head, 
That  holds  a  dying  something  never  dead, 
Still  frets,  though  Nature  giveth  all  she  can. 
It  means,  that  woman  is  not,  I  opine, 
Her  sex's  antidote.     Who  seeks  the  asp 
For  serpents'  bites  ?     'Twould  calm  me  could  I  clasp 
Shrieking  Bacchantes  with  their  souls  of  wine  ! 


XXXIII 

^  T  N  Paris,  at  the  Louvre,  there  have  I  seen 
A      The  sumptuously-feather'd  angel  pierce 
Prone  Lucifer,  descending.     Look'd  he  fierce, 
Showing  the  fight  a  fair  one  ?     Too  serene ! 
The  young  Pharsalians  did  not  disarray 
Less  willingly  their  locks  of  floating  silk  : 
That  suckling  mouth  of  his,  upon  the  milk 
Of  stars  might  still  be  feasting  through  the  fray. 
Oh,  Raphael !  when  men  the  Fiend  do  fight. 
They  conquer  not  upon  such  easy  terms. 
Half  serpent  in  the  struggle  grow  these  worms. 
And  does  he  grow  half  human,  all  is  right.' 
This  to  my  Lady  in  a  distant  spot, 
Upon  the  theme  :  '  While  mind  is  mastering  day, 
Gross  clay  invades  it.^     If  the  spy  you  play. 
My  wife,  read  this  !     Strange  love-talk,  is  it  not  ? 


XXXIV 

MADAM  would  speak  with  me.     So,  now  it  comes  : 
The  Deluge,  or  else  Fire  !     She's  well ;  she  thanks 
My  husbandship.     Our  chain  through  silence  clanks. 
Time  leers  between  us,  twiddling  his  thumbs. 
Am  I  quite  well .''     Most  excellent  in  health  ! 
The  journals,  too,  I  diligently  peruse. 
Vesuvius  is  expected  to-  give  news  : 
Niagara  is  no  noisier.     By  stealth 
Our  eyes  dart  scrutinizing  snakes.     She's  glad 
I'm  happy,  says  her  quivering  under-lip. 
"And  are  not  you  ? "     "  How  can  I  be  ? "     **  Take  ship ! 
"  For  happiness  is  somewhere  to  be  had." 
"  Nowhere  for  me  !  "     Her  voice  is  barely  heard. 
I  am  not  melted,  and  make  no  pretence. 
With  truisms  I  freeze  her,  tongue  and  sense. 
Niagara,  or  Vesuvius,  is  deferr'd. 


XXXV 

IT  is  no  vulgar  nature  I  have  wived. 
Secretive,  sensitive,  she  takes  a  wound 
Deep  to  her  soul,  as  if  the  sense  had  swoon'd, 
And  not  a  thought  of  vengeance  had  survived. 
No  confidences  has  she  :  but  relief 
Must  come  to  one  whose  suffering  is  acute. 
O  have  a  care  of  natures  that  are  mute ! 
They  punish  you  in  acts  :  their  steps  are  brief. 
What  is  she  doing  ?     What  does  she  demand 
From  Providence,  or  me  ?     She  is  not  one 
Long  to  endure  this  torpidly,  and  shun 
The  drugs  that  crowd  about  a  woman's  hand. 
At  Forfeits  during  snow  we  play'd,  and  I 
Must  kiss  her.     "  Well  perform'd  !  "     I  said :  then  she 
"  'Tis  hardly  worth  the  money,  you  agree  ?  " 
Save  her  ?    What  for  ?    To  act  this  wedded  lie ! 


XXXVI 

MY  Lady  unto  Madam  makes  her  bow. 
The  charm  of  women  is,  that  even  while 
You're  probed  by  them  for  tears,  you  yet  may  smile, 
Nay,  laugh  outright,  as  I  have  done  just  now. 
The  interview  was  gracious  :  they  anoint 
(To  me  aside)  each  other  with  fine  praise : 
Discriminating  compliments  they  raise, 
That  hit  with  wondrous  aim  on  the  weak  point. 
My  Lady's  nose  of  nature  might  complain. 
It  is  not  fashion'd  aptly  to  express 
Her  character  of  large-brow'd  stedfastness. 
But  Madam  says  :    Thereof  she  may  be  vain  ! 
Now,  Madam's  faulty  feature  is  a  glazed 
And  inaccessible  eye,  that  has  soft  fires. 
Wide  gates,  at  love-time  only.     This  admires 
My  Lady.     At  the  two  I  stand  amazed. 


XXXVII 

ALONG  the  garden  terrace,  under  which 
A  purple  valley  (lighted  at  its  edge 
By  smoky  torch-flame  on  the  long  cloud-ledge 
Whereunder  dropp'd  the  chariot),  glimmers  rich, 
A  quiet  company  we  pace,  and  wait 
The  dinner-bell  in  pre-digestive  calm. 
So  sweet  up  violet  banks  the  Southern  balm 
Breathes  round,  we  care  not  if  the  bell  be  late  : 
Tho'  here  and  there  gray  seniors  question  Time 
In  irritable  coughings.     With  slow  foot 
The  low,  rosed  moon,  the  face  of  Music  mute, 
Begins  among  her  silent  bars  to  climb. 
As  in  and  out,  in  silvery  dusk,  we  thread, 
I  hear  the  laugh  of  Madam,  and  discern 
My  Lady's  heel  before  me  at  each  turn. 
Our  Tragedy,  is  it  alive  or  dead  ? 


XXXVIII 

GIVE  to  imagination  some  pure  light 
In  human  form  to  fix  it,  or  you  shame 
The  devils  with  that  hideous  human  game  :  — 
Imagination  urging  appetite ! 
Thus  fallen  have  earth's  greatest  Gogmagogs, 
Who  dazzle  us,  whom  we  cannot  revere. 
Imagination  is  the  charioteer 
That,  in  default  of  better,  drives  the  hogs. 
So,  therefore,  my  dear  Lady,  let  me  love ! 
My  soul  is  arrow'd  to  the  light  in  you. 
You  know  me  that  I  never  can  renew 
The  bond  that  woman  broke :  what  would  you  have  ? 
'Tis  Love,  or  Vileness !  not  a  choice  between, 
Save  petrifaction  !     What  does  Pity  here  ? 
She  kill'd  a  thing,  and  now  it's  dead,  'tis  dear. 
O,  when  you  counsel  me,,think  what  you  mean  ! 


XXXIX 

SHE  yields  :  my  Lady  in  her  noblest  mood 
Has  yielded  :  she,  my  golden-crowned  rose  ! 
The  bride  of  every  sense  !  more  sweet  than  those 
Who  breathe  the  violet  breath  of  maidenhood. 
O  visage  of  still  music  in  the  sky ! 
Soft  moon  !     I  feel  thy  song,  my  fairest  friend  ! 
True  harmony  within  can  apprehend 
Dumb  harmony  without.     And  hark  !  'tis  nigh  ! 
Belief  has  struck  the  note  of  sound  :  a  gleam 
Of  living  silver  shows  me  where  she  shook 
Her  long  white  fingers  down  the  shadowy  brook, 
That  sings  her  song,  half  waking,  half  in  dream. 
What  two  come  here  to  mar  this  heavenly  tune  ? 
A  man  is  one  :  the  woman  bears  my  name, 
And  honour.     Their  hands  touch  !     Am  I  still  tame  ? 
God.  what  a  dancing  spectre  seems  the  moon  ! 


XL 


I   bade  my  Lady  think  what  she  might  mean. 
Know  I  my  meaning,  //     Can  I  love  one, 
And  yet  be  jealous  of  another  ?     None 
Commit  such  folly.     Terrible  Love,  I  ween, 
Has  might,  even  dead,  half  sighing  to  upheave 
The  lightless  seas  of  selfishness  amain  : 
Seas  that  in  a  man's  heart  have  no  rain 
To  fall  and  still  them.     Peace  can  I  achieve 
By  turning  to  this  fountain-source  of  woe. 
This  woman,  who's  to  Love  as  fire  to  wood  ? 
She  breath'd  the  violet  breath  of  maidenhood 
Against  my  kisses  once  !  but  I  say,  No  ! 
The  thing  is  mock'd  at !     Helplessly  afloat, 
I  know  not  what  I  do,  whereto  I  strive. 
The  dread  that  my  old  love  may  be  alive. 
Has  seiz'd  my  nursling  new  love  by  the  throat. 


XLI 

HOW  many  a  thing  which  we  cast  to  the  ground, 
When  others  pick  it  up  becomes  a  gem  ! 
We  grasp  at  all  the  wealth  it  is  to  them ; 
And  by  reflected  light  its  worth  is  found. 
Yet  for  us  still  'tis  nothing !  and  that  zeal 
Of  false  appreciation  quickly  fades. 
This  truth  is  little  known  to  human  shades, 
How  rare  from  their  own  instinct  'tis  to  feel ! 
They  waste  the  soul  with  spurious  desire, 
That  is  not  the  ripe  flame  upon  the  bough : 
We  two  have  taken  up  a  lifeless  vow 
To  rob  a  living  passion  :  dust  for  fire  ! 
Madam  is  grave,  and  eyes  the  clock  that  tells 
Approaching  midnight.     We  have  struck  despair 
Into  two  hearts.     O,  look  we  like  a  pair 
Who  for  fresh  nuptials  joyfully  yield  all  else  ? 


XLII 

I   am  to  follow  her.     There  is  much  grace 
In  women  when  thus  bent  on  martyrdom. 
They  think  that  dignity  of  soul  may  come, 
Perchance,  with  dignity  of  body.     Base ! 
But  I  was  taken  by  that  air  of  cold 
And  statuesque  sedateness,  when  she  said, 
"  I'm  going ;  "  lit  the  taper,  bow'd  her  head. 
And  went,  as  with  the  stride  of  Pallas  bold. 
Fleshly  indifference  horrible  !     The  hands 
Of  Time  now  signal :  O,  she's  safe  from  me ! 
Within  those  secret  walls  what  do  I  see  ? 
Where  first  she  set  the  taper  down  she  stands  : 
Not  Pallas  :     Hebe  shamed  !    Thoughts  black  as  death, 
Like  a  stirr'd  pool  in  sunshine  break.     Her  wrists 
I  catch :  she  faltering,  as  she  half  resists, 
"  You  love  .  .  .  ?  love  .  .  .  ?  love  .  .  .  ? "  all  in  an  indrawn  breath. 


XLIII 

MARK  where  the  pressing  wind  shoots  javelin-like, 
Its  skeleton  shadow  on  the  broad-back'd  wave  ! 
Here  is  a  fitting  spot  to  dig  Love's  grave ; 
Here  where  the  ponderous  breakers  plunge  and  strike, 
And  dart  their  hissing  tongues  high  up  the  sand : 
In  hearing  of  the  ocean,  and  in  sight 
Of  those  ribb'd  wind-streaks  running  into  white. 
If  I  the  death  of  Love  had  deeply  plann'd, 
I  never  could  have  made  it  half  so  sure, 
As  by  the  unbless'd  kisses  which  upbraid 
The  full-waked  sense  ;  or,  failing  that,  degrade ! 
T  is  morning  :  but  no  morning  can  restore 
What  we  have  forfeited.     I  see  no  sin  : 
'The  wrong  is  mix'd.     In  tragic  life,  God  wot. 
No  villain  need  be  !     Passions  spin  the  plot : 
We  are  betray'd  by  what  is  false  within. 


XLIV 

THEY  say  that  Pity  in  Love's  service  dwells, 
A  porter  at  the  rosy  temple's  gate, 
I  miss'd  him  going  :  but  it  is  my  fate 
To  come  upon  him  now  beside  his  wells  ; 
Whereby  I  know  that  I  Love's  temple  leave, 
And  that  the  purple  doors  have  closed  behind. 
Poor  soul !  if  in  those  early  days  unkind, 
Thy  power  to  sting  had  been  but  power  to  grieve, 
We  now  might  with  an  equal  spirit  meet, 
And  not  be  match'd  like  innocence  and  vice. 
She  for  the  Temple's  worship  has  paid  price, 
And  takes  the  coin  of  Pity  as  a  cheat. 
She  sees  thro'  simulation  to  the  bone : 
What's  best  in  her  impels  her  to  the  worst. 
Never,  she  cries,  shall  Pity  soothe  Love's  thirst, 
Or  foul  hypocrisy  for  truth  atone ! 


XLV 

IT  is  the  season  of  the  sweet  wild  rose, 
My  Lady's  emblem  in  the  heart  of  me ! 
So  golden-crowned  shines  she  gloriously, 
And  with  that  softest  dream  of  blood  she  glows  : 
Mild  as  an  evening  Heaven  round  Hesper  bright ! 
I  pluck  the  flower,  and  smell  it,  and  revive 
The  time  when  in  her  eyes  I  stood  alive. 
I  seem  to  look  upon  it  out  of  Night. 
Here's  Madam,  stepping  hastily.     Her  whims 
Bid  her  demand  the  flower,  which  I  let  drop. 
As  I  proceed,  I  feel  her  sharply  stop, 
And  crush  it  under  heel  with  trembling  limbs. 
She  joins  me  in  a  cat-like  way,  and  talks 
Of  company,  and  even  condescends 
To  utter  laughing  scandal  of  old  friends. 
These  are  the  summer  days,  and  these  our  walks. 


XLVI 

AT  last  we  parley  :  we  so  strangely  dumb 
In  such  a  close  communion !     It  befell 
About  the  sounding  of  the  Matin-bell, 
And  lo  !  her  place  was  vacant,  and  the  hum 
Of  loneliness  was  round  me.    Then  I  rose, 
And  my  disorder'd  brain  did  guide  my  foot 
To  that  old  wood  where  our  first  love-salute 
Was  interchanged  :  the  source  of  many  throes ! 
There  did  I  see  her,  not  alone.     I  moved 
Towards  her,  and  made  proffer  of  my  arm. 
She  took  it  simply,  with  no  rude  alarm ; 
And  that  disturbing  shadow  pass'd  reproved, 
I  felt  the  pain'd  speech  coming,  and  declared 
My  firm  belief  in  her,  ere  she  could  speak, 
A  ghastly  morning  came  into  her  cheek, 
While  with  a  widening  soul  on  me  she  stared. 


XLVII 

WE  saw  the  swallows  gathering  in  the  sky, 
And  in  the  osier-isle  we  heard  their  noise. 
We  had  not  to  look  back  on  summer  joys, 
Or  forward  to  a  summer  of  bright  dye. 
But  in  the  largeness  of  the  evening  earth 
Our  spirits  grew  as  we  went  side  by  side. 
The  hour  became  her  husband,  and  my  bride. 
Love  that  had  robb'd  us  so,  thus  bless'd  our  dearth ! 
The  pilgrims  of  the  year  wax'd  very  loud 
In  multitudinous  chatterings,  as  the  flood 
Full  brown  came  from  the  west,  and  like  pale  blood 
Expanded  to  the  upper  crimson  cloud. 
Love  that  had  robb'd  us  of  immortal  things. 
This  little  moment  mercifully  gave. 
And  still  I  see  across  the  twilight  wave, 
The  swan  sail  with  her  young  beneath  her  wings. 


XLVIII 

THEIR  sense  is  with  their  senses  all  mix'd  in. 
Destroy'd  by  subtleties  these  women  are  ! 
More  brain,  O  Lord,  more  brain  !  or  we  shall  mar 
Utterly  this  fair  garden  we  might  win. 
Behold  !  I  looked  for  peace,  and  thought  it  near. 
Our  inmost  hearts  had  open'd,  each  to  each. 
We  drank  the  pure  daylight  of  honest  speech. 
Alas  !  that  was  the  fatal  draught,  I  fear. 
For  when  of  my  lost  Lady  came  the  word, 
This  woman,  O  this  agony  of  flesh  ! 
Jealous  devotion  bade  her  break  the  mesh, 
That  I  might  seek  that  other  like  a  bird. 
I  do  adore  the  nobleness  !  despise 
The  act !     She  has  gone  forth,  I  know  not  where. 
Will  the  hard  world  my  sentience  of  her  share  ? 
I  feel  the  truth  ;  so  let  the  world  surmise. 


XLIX 

HE  found  her  by  the  ocean's  moaning  verge. 
Nor  any  wicked  change  in  her  discern'd  ; 
And  she  believed  his  old  love  had  return'd, 
Which  was  her  exultation,  and  her  scourge. 
She  took  his  hand,  and  walked  with  him,  and  seem'd 
The  wife  he  sought,  tho'  shadowlike  and  dry. 
She  had  one  terror,  lest  her  heart  should  sigh, 
And  tell  her  loudly  she  no  longer  dream'd. 
She  dared  not  say,  "This  is  my  breast:  look  in." 
But  there's  a  strength  to  help  the  desperate  weak.   * 
That  night  he  learnt  how  silence  best  can  speak 
The  awful  things  when  Pity  pleads  for  Sin. 
About  the  middle  of  the  night  her  call 
Was  heard,  and  he  came  wondering  to  the  bed. 
"  Now  kiss  me,  dear  !  it  may  be,  now ! "  she  said. 
Lethe  had  pass'd  those  lips,  and  he  knew  all. 


THUS  piteously  Love  closed  what  he  begat : 
The  union  of  this  ever-diverse  pair  ! 
These  two  were  rapid  falcons  in  a  snare, 
Condemn'd  to  do  the  flitting  of  the  bat. 
Lovers  beneath  the  singing  sky  of  May, 
They  wander'd  once ;  clear  as  the  dew  on  flowers 
But  they  fed  not  on  the  advancing  hours  : 
Their  hearts  held  cravings  for  the  buried  day. 
Then  each  applied  to  each  that  fatal  knife, 
Deep  questioning,  which  probes  to  endless  dole. 
Ah,  what  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life  !  — 
In  tragic  hints  here  see  what  evermore 
Moves  dark  as  yonder  midnight  ocean's  force. 
Thundering  like  ramping  hosts  of  warrior  horse, 
To  throw  that  faint  thin  line  upon  the  shore  ! 


Press    of    Brown    Thurston  Company    Portland    Maine 


397178       ft; 


n  Cuz:^^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


